


Admissions Process

by StripedSunhat



Series: A Village of One [9]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: (mostly ignored manners but he tried and for Klaus that's really something), Gen, Politics, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon, Too many questions, Why Klaus needs therapy, Why Sparks need therapy, manners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 06:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedSunhat/pseuds/StripedSunhat
Summary: Klaus arranges Gil’s schooling.  Which means asking a favor of one of the few people he doesn’t have absolute dominion over.Gil is lucky Klaus loves him.





	Admissions Process

**Author's Note:**

> If I had an excuse, I'd give it. But I do not.  
> Just... take it. Take it so I don't have to look at it any more. The next is already partially written so hopefully it won't take so god-awful long and won't be sidetracked by multiple mental and emotional breakdowns. Hopefully.

There were many things about his position that Klaus would begrudgingly acknowledge as useful. But if there was one advantage of the Barony he genuinely appreciated it was the lack of peers of equal standing. There was almost no one in Europa and beyond on the same level – in politics, social standing, power, influence – as Klaus. As a result Klaus didn’t have to waste his time socializing with small-minded, scheming vipers and could instead focus on what needed to get done.

Unfortunately Voltaire was one of those few people who Klaus did have to pay courtesy to. He couldn’t ignore a summons from an equal without a very good – and more importantly quantifiable – reason. Especially when he was about to ask for a very large favor from him. (Although exactly how large Klaus fully intended to remain secret.)

So when the summons came, Klaus could hardly cite ‘I really, really don’t want to’ and ignore it like he could everyone else.

Voltaire was sitting on a large, overly ornate chair in the middle of an even larger reception hall. The result wasn’t _quite_ a king holding an audience from his throne but Klaus would bet anything it was modeled after one. “Klaus. Good of you to come.”

“Well you asked so nicely,” Klaus said as dryly as he possibly could. He did not appreciate being blindsided by Voltaire’s summons. Especially one that brought with it a thinly veiled threat of war.

“I had to be certain you’d show up in something at least resembling a timely fashion. This way you wouldn’t let yourself get distracted with a thousand little emergencies until six months had gone by.”

Another disadvantage to equals; you couldn’t stab them. “Well I’m here. What’s this all about?”

“I’ve been informed you want to enroll one of your students in my university.”

Even coming into the meeting knowing Gil’s enrollment was going to be what Voltaire wanted to talk about Klaus couldn’t help the instinctual desire to freeze. He beat down the impulse. “Is that really such a surprise? I’ve always done my best to foster potential.”

“Yes, yes. Which is why your school is an actual school and not a glorified prison with a pretty name. We would have problems a long time ago otherwise.”

“Then what exactly is the problem now?”

“Not a problem per say. Merely… curiosity.” Oh god Voltaire was playing obtuse. When he wanted to he could keep a conversation circling around a subject without actually getting to it for _weeks_. And Klaus would be stuck here listening to it.

“Get to your point. I do have other things I need to do this month. I can’t spend all of it here chatting.”

“You have all the patience of a drunk gadfly.” Well at least Klaus now knew the results of Voltaire’s little experiment from a decade ago. “Fine. Since you’re in such an unforgivable rush I’ll cut right to it. Rather than sending any children of actual importance you’re sending the lone charity case.”

He took it back he preferred obtuse.

“The children of actual importance, as you call them, are _hostages_. Sending them away for years on end would defeat the point.”

“And yet Gilgamesh is the _only_ one you’re sending. Probably because he is the _only_ charity case you’ve ever had aboard your airship. Why is that?”

“I just told you I do my best to foster potential wherever I find it. Am I to throw out and alienate a strong young Spark because they lack the proper bloodline?”

“Oh come off it Klaus. That boy has been aboard your airship since he was an infant. Or does your propensity for recognizing potential extend to fortune telling now?”

“You’re going to accuse me on the basis of compassion?”

“If you had shown such aggressive spontaneous altruism at any other point in your entire life you might have shown anything close to it. And you still haven’t answered my question. Why is Gilgamesh the only orphan you’ve ever brought onto the airship? He’s the only one you’ve ever personally dealt with at all Your soldiers occasionally come across an orphan or two along the way. They’ll pass him along, usually within the same town they found him. If that doesn’t work then he’ll be passed along to one of your administrators or lackies, put into their care and purview. None have ever stayed even indirectly within your custody for more than a day. Except Gilgamesh.” Klaus opened his mouth but before he could say anything – what exactly he hadn’t the faintest clue but that had never stopped him before – Voltaire cut him off, a man who’d assembled a perfect argument and refused to have his brilliance interrupted.

“And the allowances you give that boy. He wanders in and out of restricted areas wily-nilly, he causes a new explosion practically every week, he practically generates assassins. Tell me, has the number of baloonless flying machine prototypes reached the triple digits yet?” Voltaire should not know this stuff. The French spies Klaus has let stay aboard the ship do not know this stuff. “If anyone else pulled half the stunts Gilgamesh has you’d have strapped them to an examination table years ago. Instead you dote on him. He has multiple labs including that aeronautics lab you hate so much and yet refuse to shut down or take away. Gilgamesh has spent countless hours with the jäger generals, he’s plugged into your spy network, he’s given free access to nearly every part of the ship.” Seriously, how many other spies did Voltaire have on Klaus’s airship?

“I thought you were going to _stop_ talking around your point.” Klaus would not admit to the vicious sense of satisfaction he took at Voltaire’s sour lemon expression.

“I know Gilgamesh is Teuful’s son.” The air knocked itself out of Klaus’s lungs.

It worked.

Klaus’s bluff worked.

It actually _worked_.

“You tried to hide it; you even did an admirable job doing so,” Voltaire said, interpreting Klaus’s silence as something else entirely from what it was. (His bluff _actually worked_.) “But I have been around a very long time. It is very difficult to hide things from me.” With great force of will Klaus beat the bubble of hysterical laughter welling up in his throat back down. “Within my city it is impossible.”

“Duly noted. I’ll do my best to remember that in the future.”

“See that you do.” Voltaire glared for several more seconds before his shoulders slumped, the weight of centuries newly redoubling on him all at once. Or something of the sort Klaus assumed. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. Teuful’s son,” he muttered to himself. Definitely too many centuries there. “Teuful, Klaus? Really?”

“Don’t be so dramatic. You act like I’ve resurrected the Other.”

“For a lot of people you might as well have.”

“If we were to judge people on the sin’s of their parentage Bill and Barry would have been killed the first time they set foot outside of Mechanicsburg.” Voltaire’s death glare softened. Amateur. Just because Bill and Barry had been his oldest, closest friends and he their absence still physically hurt to think about didn’t mean Klaus wouldn’t ruthlessly use them as a card to play to get done what he needed.

“Right. Fine. I see your point. Besides which, if you really thought he was in any way a danger you’d never let him out of your lab, let alone off your airship.” Klaus wasn’t quite sure what to do with that statement but the end result left him feeling vaguely insulted.

“Excuse me!?”

“Mmn. It’s true Klaus. It’s just how you’re wired. For how close you were to Bill and Barry I could never help feeling that should either of them have crossed any of the lines you felt should be drawn in the sand the three of you would have ended up at worse than at odds with each other. You always have been ruthlessly practical.” Well now Klaus was definitely offended.

“I would think that you of all people would know the risks of so gravely insulting –”

“Quit being such a drama queen. It’s that unfeeling pragmatism of yours that has me considering throwing aside my common sense and granting your request.”

“Oh.” Well that was… Different. Um… He didn’t quite know what to do with that. On the whole he’d arrived expecting a lot more fighting. There’d been a lot less… resistance than he’d expected. He’d planned for more violence than this.

…

He probably shouldn’t be the one to start it if it wasn’t going to happen.

“Right.   I’ll just… be going then. I’ll send someone to go over the details of –”

“Stop.” Klaus froze, awkwardly balanced halfway to backing out of the room. “I haven’t actually agreed yet.”

“You just said –”

“I _said_ I was considering it. I still have more questions.”

“Of course you do,” Klaus said with an eyeroll worthy of his son.

“The boy’s mother. Who is she?” Klaus’s blood froze in his veins.

“Not in the picture.”

“Try again.”

“She’s not an issue.”

“Don’t give me that Klaus. Whoever she was she was willing, if not to sleep with Teuful, then at least carry his child to term. I’m not leaving such a large, potentially dangerous variable left unknown.”

“She’s dead,” Klaus spat. “She died the same day I found Gilgamesh. Does that satisfy you?”

“She isn’t in your records.” That’s because Klaus had never made up a fake mother for Gil. A gross oversight apparently.

“I was trying to be respectful,” he said, pulling words blindly together. “She was barely more than a child, younger than Gil himself currently is.”

“I assume you have private records about her somewhere.”

That bit about meeting less resistance than expected? He’d like to take that statement back now. “I’ll make sure it gets to you,” he ground out. “Now if that’s all –”

“One more thing.”

**_“What?”_ **

Voltaire stared him down, completely uncowed by his anger. “I know you have no children. Your empire has no future once you’re gone.”

“What is your _point?_ ”

“Answer me honestly Klaus. Are you planning on making that boy your heir?”

“What I do or do not plan to do with my empire is not your concern.”

“It is when you send _Teuful’s son_ into **my** city because of it.” Throughout the whole time Voltaire had not stopped staring Klaus down. This was a man who’d been alive for centuries. He’d known the Storm King, he’d seen empires rise and fall. His city had never been breached, barely even been touched. For the first time Klaus considered that the man across from him wasn’t his equal but his better. Klaus looked away.

“I am.”

“Nothing can ever be easy with you, can it Klaus?” Klaus heard him said before the chair creaked as he stood up. “I must be going crazy,” Voltaire muttered as he walked over. “Fine. I will allow your heir to come into my city for the purpose of attending university. But note this Klaus, I will not treat him differently than anyone else. If he causes a problem I will not hesitate to deal with it and with him.”

“Understood. He knows better than that.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less with you.” He clapped Klaus on the shoulder. “Come on. I’ll escort you to your dirigible.” As they neared the airship docks Voltaire said, “Send that four armed man of yours to go over the details of Gilgamesh’s schedule and lodgings.”

“A protection detail will be accompanying him.”

“No jägers,” Voltaire said sharply.

Klaus indulged in another eyeroll. “Or course not. Do you really think I’d use _jägers_ for a covert protection detail?”

“I wasn’t sure how covert you were planning on being. You use them everywhere else in your empire and I know how fond the boy is of them.” Exactly how well informed were Voltaire’s mystery spies anyway?

“Just one last question.”

“Another one?”

Voltaire smiled at him, a knowing self-satisfied grin that automatically set Klaus’s teeth on edge. “There are plenty of good schools in your empire, why send him to mine?”

Klaus glared at him. “You are insufferable, you realize that?” Voltaire’s grin grew downright smug. “You know why.”

“Still. Worth saying out loud.” Klaus growled. Voltaire, still grinning, raised an eyebrow at him. “Well?”

“Yours is the best university on the continent,” Klaus finally ground out. Happy now?”

“Very.” Klaus’s dirigible came into sight and Voltaire pulled to a stop. “I look forward to seeing Gilgamesh here with the coming enrollment.”

“Gil. He prefers to be called Gil.”

Voltaire’s smile softened, less smug and more fond instead. “You really do care about him, don’t you?”

An answer immediately sprang to Klaus’s mind. Oh, that was a bad idea. That was a horrible idea to say.

Well, no one had ever accused Klaus of impulse control.

“I couldn’t care about him more if he was my own flesh and blood.”


End file.
